Children’s Book Series that Inspired Great Art Projects: February's Stepping Stones

Click here to view the entire article in Stepping Stones in the Arts and Activities magazine.

With the ELA common core standards, more art educators are attempting to incorporate literature within their curriculum.  From artist series to popular fictional characters, art teachers have tons of creative ways to promote visual literacy and help design lessons to include supplemental materials or project inspirations.  You can create a lesson from any book you pick up in your classroom, but since we’re visual artists, many of us like to focus on “art” specific topics.  You may find a story about “Uncle Andy’s Cats (inspired by Andy Warhol),” or read about artistic inspiration from “Bridget’s Beret.”  You could also use books to explain elements of art, such as “Mouse Paint” or “Lines That Wiggle.”  Among all the books I use, I like to refer to a few series I’ve collected for my art library in my classroom.

Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists:  This artist series (written and illustrated by Mike Venezia) is a wonderful one to use with the elementary level.  The pictures are bright and colorful, and the stories are very informative and to the point.  Students are able to learn about the artists’ place of origin, how they became artists, what famous works they made, and how the artist impacted the art world.  I like to use this book series when introducing an artist and his/her style of art.  There are currently over 30+ artists featured in the series.  If you go to the website www.gettingtoknow.com,  there is a list of artist books available, as well as teacher resources for specific artists!

Peter Reynold’s “Creatology” Series: Many schools celebrate “International Dot Day,” which is inspired by the book titled “The Dot,” which promotes students to “make their mark.”.  The 2^nd and 3^rd books, which are “Ish” and Sky Color,” explore more about keeping your eyes open to possibilities and having the freedom to express yourself.  When our school celebrated International Dot Day, I had each grade level (from K-6) create a “dot” to be displayed around the school.  There are numerous project ideas that you can find with a Google or Pinterest search, thanks to many art teachers who blogged their student creations.  Lesson ideas and resources can also be found at www.thedotclub.org, which is the site dedicated to International Dot Day.

Eric Carle’s Children’s Book Collection: Most children are familiar with the designed picture books written and illustrated by artist Eric Carle.  His most known work, “The Hungry Caterpillar,” has been translated into 62 languages and sold over 40+ million copies.  Eric Carle’s style of art is very recognizable. His style has inspired many Early Childhood and Kindergarten projects.  Eric’s themes of his stories revolve around his love for nature, which is an interest of most children at the primary grade level.  I’ve enjoyed working with “The Grouchy Ladybug” with my kindergarten students!  We’ve created paintings filled with ladybugs and different characters from the book, and it’s quite funny when a student attempts to draw the whale in the sky!

Scholastic’s stories written and illustrated by students: I love when we have Scholastic book fairs because I like to see what the next young author series may be.  It all started when I found the book “Van Gogh’s Cat” written by 2^nd grade students from Muncie, Indiana.  Each page was an artwork created by each student in the class, while the story itself was written by the students!  The following year I picked up “September 12^th,” which was written by 1^st grade students after 9/11.  After reading these books over and over again to my students, I thought how interesting it would be to create artwork inspired by books written and illustrated by students at the same age!  In my second grade classes, I have students create their own masterpieces with a cat jumping, walking, or pouncing out of their paper, just like the 2^nd grade students who wrote the book!  My students are always shocked to see that books made by other kids their age can make it in print.  And funny enough, there is another art-inspired Scholastic book in our fair this week called “Masterpiece” to add to my collection!

Artist Series by Laurence Anholt: While browsing through your school library, you may come across an artist story by the author Laurence Anholt.  There are currently 8 titles in the series with new stories being created.  Anholt’s stories are about real children who actually met great artists.  The material is based on actual research.  To learn more about this artist series, please visit www.anholt.co.uk.

Books can be a very essential part to your art curriculum, and this list is only a small handful of what you can use within your lessons.  I encourage you to explore what art-inspired books you can use within your classes!

Aligning With the Standards: October's Stepping Stones

For October's Stepping Stones in Arts & Activities Magazine, I focused on how to work in the new core arts standards within our curriculum.  In June 2014, the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards released the new and updated National Arts Standards for visual arts, music, dance, drama, and media arts. Prior to the standard’s release, art educators worked with different benchmarks available, such as state developed, previous designed national standards, and the recently common core ELA/Math standards required of most districts across the country.

Before the release of the core arts standards, our district worked with the state standards and adapted them into each lesson within our curriculum. With the release of the new core arts standards, our district is now working to implement the visual arts standards and artistic processes, while integrating the Common Core (ELA/Math), Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), Technology, and Social Emotional Learning standards (SEL). I know what you’re thinking … that’s a lot of standards to include within each lesson!

The core arts standards begin with four artistic processes: creating, performing/presenting/producing, responding, and connecting. Each artistic process breaks down into grade level appropriate performance standards for each grade level for pre-K through 12th grade.

Creating: The first artistic process is creating, which implies that we generate, conceptualize, organize, and develop artistic ideas and work. These standards also include refinement and completion of artistic work.

Presenting: The second artistic process combines performing/presenting/ and producing into one. This is where you analyze, interpret, and select artistic works for presentation, develop and refine artistic works for presentation, and convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work.

Responding: The third artistic process is responding, which is how you perceive and analyze artistic work, interpret intent and meaning in artistic work, and apply criteria to evaluate artistic work.

Connecting: The fourth artistic process is connecting, which is how students synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art, as well as relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding.

There are two types of standards within the grade levels.   Anchor standards describe general knowledge and skills that teachers expect students to demonstrate throughout their education in the arts. Performance standards are discipline-specific (dance, media arts, music, theatre, visual arts), grade-by-grade articulations of student achievement in the arts PK–8 and at three proficiency levels in high school (proficient, accomplished and advanced). As such, the performance standards translate the anchor standards into specific, measurable learning goals.

Now that we know a bit more about the national core arts standards, we need to figure out how to include them within our own curriculum. There are a few ways to begin aligning with the national visual arts standards.

First, before you get confused, the standards can be found at nationalartsstandards.org. When visiting the site, you can customize your own “handbook” with the standards you need for the grade level you teach. Once you have your own standards organized, you can print them, save them, download them, or copy/paste them to where you feel you can view them when plugging in your lessons.

Second, the most convenient way to begin alignment is just picking and choosing which standard matches the lessons you already teach. For example, you may have a first-grade project where you’re teaching students how to create a collage. Is your main objective to understand the process? Choose your grade-level standard in the “creating” artistic process category. Are you connecting your project to a culture or current event? Find a standard in the “connecting” artistic process category.

Third, you can use the standards to help assess your students’ progress. Within the assessments you design, whether written or visual, you can plug in the standard as an attainable goal for your students.

Lastly, when setting up your displays, place the standards on the walls to help your school and colleagues become familiarized with them. You can also share the standards with your curriculum director or administrator to help in gaining more support for the visual-art curriculum.

Thanks to the writers and reviewers of the national coalition for core arts standards and the hundreds of teachers who participated in their public reviews, we now have a set of achievable standards for all grade levels. For more information, visit nationalartsstandards.org.

Combining Elements of Art With Core Subjects: January's Stepping Stones

For January's Stepping Stones, I focused on how to combine elements of art with the core subjects.  In January 2014, I was given a great opportunity to present to my district how the arts infuse core subjects within our own curriculum.  I took the opportunity to also share how core subjects and classroom teachers in our district can combine the art standards within their own lessons.

To view my complete article, please visit January's Stepping Stones column.

How Teachers Can Connect Arts Into Their Lessons 

1. Dance and theater are artistic ways to combine the arts and physical education.  With an emphasis on “body movement,” students exercise imagination and creative skills. (Emphasis on Dance and Physical Education Standards)

2. Have students draw what they hear while listening to music.  This encourages students to visualize sounds and practice their craftsmanship! (Combined with Music Core Arts Standards)

3. Create projects they could interact with!  Instruments, Rube Goldberg projects, etc… (Next Generation Science Standards)

4. Instead of writing out our answers in graphic organizers, why not draw what we are saying? (ELA Common Core Standards)

5. Writing can be more than just sentences!  Instead of coloring pictures, fill the images in with words! (ELA Common Core Standards)

6. Create a visual demonstration of the math problem. (Math Common Core Standards)

7. Use grids to encourage measurements and proportions. (Math Common Core Standards)

8. Are your students presenting?  Have the students be the presentation. (Drama Core Arts Standards)

9.When teaching history (or any subject), pick an artist that reflects the time or theme. (ELA Common Core)

10. Encourage creative practice through technology. (Technology Standards)

11. Have students practice their compositions through photography. (Visual Arts and Media Arts Core Arts Standards)

12. Encourage visual literacy! (ELA Common Core)

Spring Science + Art Projects for K-2

At the end of the school year, I was packing up the classroom like everyone else, except I had to pack for a cart next year.  With so many materials to put away, I was brainstorming on what project I could make with the primary grades with minimal materials, exciting for the students, and tied into their curriculum.  I decided upon two projects that could adapt for grades K-2, integrating science and literature, with a Spring theme.

Kindergarten Grouchy Ladybugs

Inspired by the story "The Grouchy Ladybug" by Eric Carle

Kindergarten students are very familiar with the work of Eric Carle, especially since I like to create lessons inspired by many of his books.  For this project, I only used white paper, pencils, crayons, and tempura cakes (with paintbrushes and water, of course).

We started by reading the book together, then identifying the many insects and animals the ladybug encountered throughout the book.  We also talked about where the ladybug lived and what insects would live in the same patch of grass and leaves.  I demonstrated to the students how to draw the grass, some of the insects, the ladybug, and left the other animals to the kids' imaginations.  Some students chose to work with just ladybugs, while others added different insects to their pictures.  Once the students were done drawing, the colored with crayon and painted with the tempura.  Easy clean up!

1st Grade Insects Studies

Exploring insects in nature

Did you know that if you googled "bugs in a jar," you'll get more art project images that pictures of jars?  This is one popular project with students because they not only love drawing the insects, but their studying the insects in nature.  Through art, they're also learning science by identifying the parts of the insect, what they eat, and where they live.  Having the tempura cakes out from kindergarten made it easy to share materials between grade levels.  To prepare the project, I created a packet with pictures of insects for the students to draw from.

The additional materials are:

-10.5" x 16" white paper trimmed into a jar
-pencils
-black markers
-colored paper scraps for lids
-hole puncher
-tempura paint
-paintbrushes and water
-12" x 18" colored paper
-glue

We discussed together what insects we have in our own backyards and how we safely collect them.  Students like to take the time to identify the parts of the insect and what shapes are used to draw them.  Students had to draw at least 7 insects to fill their jar, watching their space and size of the insects.  Once drawn, they traced with black marker and painted in with tempura paint.  For finishing ouches, students glued their jars to colored paper, trimmed a lid, and punched holes in the lid before gluing down.

2nd Grade Insect Studies

The 2nd grade students were also introduced to the same project, but they were given a few extra responsibilities.  First, they were shown how to cut the jar shape themselves.  The 2nd grade students had previous knowledge of creating symmetrical designs with paper folding, so the task should not have been daunting.  The students also had to cut out their lids themselves to fit the top.

I don't always use one project for different grade levels, but since this one was introduced this past school year, the project will only be used for first grade in the future (so the next batch of 2nd graders will not have to do the project twice).

How Do You Measure Student Growth in Art?

With the induction of the Language Arts and Math common core standards and the revamp of teacher evaluations, many districts are pushing harder for evidence of growth in all learning areas, and how other subject areas are infusing common core into their lessons. In Illinois, state law is requiring school districts to create and implement performance evaluation systems to measure teachers’ skills while factoring in student academic growth (about 30-50% of a teacher's evaluation score). Yes, that includes all teachers, including art, music, physical education, drama, and any educator that works with students in the public school system.  The use of goals and tests to measure growth and tying it to a teacher's evaluation has been a delicate topic among educators.

These recent changes have been a challenge for many teachers who already have a load on themselves, especially while traveling or working with a lack of space.  While general classroom teacher can have 20-40 students in their classroom, art teachers have over 800+ students they teach.  It would be nearly impossible to evaluate the growth of that many students and gather data forms throughout the entire school year, on top of project prepping, lessons, and other duties art teachers perform within their buildings.  And what if you have a high transient rate?  Stay calm and teach art.  

So with the already heavy workload many of us have, why do this?


According to author Susan Riley (founder and President of Education Closet):

As an arts teacher, you know what skills and concepts your students struggle with year in and year out.  This is our chance to identify these areas and focus on them with intensity over a long period of time.  It’s also our chance as educators to identify areas where we would like to grow and request professional development or other resources to help support our goals.

Susan further explains:

Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) have the potential to be a way to advocate for your program and to provide a frame for having meaningful conversations about student growth.  As arts teachers, we use performance tasks, formative assessments, and a lot of professional judgment to help our students grow in their capacity to make art and participate in the artistic process.  SLOs simply provide a context to showcase this work to others who may not understand what we do each and every day.


So how can we measure student growth in art?

1. Find out if you need to create a series of goals for each student, or for a specific group of students.  Knowing the amount of students you will measure will determine the complexity of the goals you set.  For example, if you need to set objectives for your entire amount of classes, decide on an attainable goal, such as meeting the project objectives set in place.  If you are asked to monitor a small group of students for growth, consider specific goals related to each individual learning style.

2. Determine the length of time you need to measure.  Is it a full year?  a few month span?  Knowing your length of time can also be a determining factor in planning your objectives.

3. Create your objectives, no matter what the name may be: Student Growth Objectives (SGOs), Student Learning Objectives (SLOs), or SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) goals are more common names, depending on your district.  The first point is to find out what it is you are measuring in your art class.  Are you wanting to measure students' drawing skills over time?  Identification of elements of art?  Whatever goal you set, make sure it's relevant to your curriculum.  

4. Make a form to track your data.  Depending on the goals you set, you can use excel sheets, data tables, or even consider a portfolio!  Did you know that one of the visual arts standards currently being developed by the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (CCAS) is focused on presentation, which includes portfolios of work?  If you check out the NCCAS website, you'll see that the standards are currently in progress and are due for release in Spring 2014!

If you're confused about where to start, consider some options to learn more about this process.  

Option #1: The Art of Education is offering and online class in January 2014 called Showing Student Growth in Art.

Option #2: Read up on blogs that offer guidance.  The Americans for the Arts Artsblog contains plenty of articles related to student growth in art and common core connections.

Option #3: Reach out to your PLN (professional learning network) on social media.  Ask other art educators what they do, what works, and what doesn't.

As I enter into this new territory as well, I will share my experiences in the process.  Are you using goals to measure students growth?  Please share your experience!